January 14, 2008 – 10:50pm (GMT +1) – Efa Village, Akowa Ibom State
Today we pretended to do work, or at least Koenig did, in reality there were people visiting constantly, one after another, to say hello. Mostly the pastors. Even pastor Edet from Port Harcourt, a good 2 ½ hour journey by car managed to find a way to come and visit. It was difficult to get anything done with people stopping in all the time. For example at 11:30 I went to make a tuna sandwich but, because I kept getting interrupted, I didn’t get the sandwich made till 2:30. But that is what we are here to do, meet these people and see how we can help them, so in that sense we were getting a lot done. They all wanted to know when they were going to get a permanent missionary. Pastor E. Essien especially made sure to let us know that they need a permanent missionary here. Perhaps the Lord will provide one for them sometime, though it doesn’t look like it will be any time in the near future. When we explained to them that there was too much to do in India a few suggested they should go with us.
I took the opportunity to get photographs of some of the pastors.
Pastor Bossey, who has just begun his ministry here in the village of Efa, took me across the street to show me the church here and his house. He also took me on his motorcycle to see the area where the seminarians live and grow their plants. One of the plants he called a pumpkin, although it didn’t look anything like any pumpkin I have ever seen. In his house there were three fairly nice looking electric guitars (the church’s property) and literally nothing else. We gave him a mattress and a desk from the house over here.
Nothing much more interesting today. The weather is a little hot, but not bad at all. I’m really enjoying it over here so far. Hopefully I’ll gradually get used to the heat as the days get hotter. Right now I just enjoy the golden sun and warm days, no snow, no ice, no cold, ahhhhhhhhh!
– Matt